‘Eyes Wide Shut’ was more psychological than sexual

Some people think "Eyes wide Shut," which was released 15 years ago, was a fitting end for director Stanley Kubrick.

Some people don’t.

I saw a lot of hints at Kubrick’s trademark in the film, and the story was very much in his style, if Kubrick had a style at all. His films differed so much in content from one another that I guess it’s not really accurate to refer to his style in any context other than camera work.

He could do comedy, he could do satire, and he could do drama.

He had a certain reputation, as did the source material for his film, an Austrian novel, "dream story," which was published more than 70 years earlier. "Eyes wide Shut" addressed the personal thoughts and conversions a Manhattan doctor experienced after his wife told him she had fantasized about having an affair.

Kubrick died shortly after the completion of filming.

I’ve never read the book, so I don’t know if the two are described in it as attractive or unassuming. I guess it doesn’t matter too much in a book, where a reader can imagine the characters to be whatever the author doesn’t explain to them.

It’s different in a movie. A character’s appearance leaves little to the imagination in a movie. If the book is not specific – and even if it is – the viewer has to accept the appearance that it is given in the film. Through casting, acting, directing, and even story revision, all of the heavy lifting is done for the viewer; your images will be those created by the writer(s), director and actors.

In casting his film, Kubrick cast two actors in the roles of husband and wife whose reputation for sexually charged performances preceded them: Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. At the time, they were spouses in real life, which probably raised their intensity level in the movie. They broke up a couple of years later.

Anyway, the talk above "Eyes wide Shut" made his debut was that he was going to be a sexy film. Given the nature of trailers being shown in theaters, that’s certainly easy to understand.

But it occurred to me as I watched it that Kubrick might have taken a page from Alfred Hitchcock’s playbook.

Hitchcock was known for his cameos in his movies; informed that the public had been waiting for his cameo appearance and weren’t satisfied with the story until they saw it, Hitchcock began to position his cameos earlier and earlier in his films.

In Kubrick’s case, the audience expected nudity, so I guess he threw a crumb at them. Audiences saw Kidman changing clothes for a party very early (and very briefly) in the film.

To me, it was as if Kubrick was saying: "OK, there’s the nudity. Now, let’s focus on the story."

From what I could see, the story was about jealousy and obsession.

(I’ve seen this movie six or seven times, at least. I’m still not sure what he was trying to say. He seems to be saying something different every time I watch it.)

What it was not the end of nudity, of course.

In fact, the story was about sex and arousal, as well as jealousy and obsession, and also about nudity, but the nudity didn’t tend to take viewers where they probably thought they were going. It might seem like a strange dichotomy, but sex and nudity don’t necessarily go hand in hand in movies, especially in a Kubrick movie. nudity in "Eyes wide Shut" was treated almost casually. So was the sex, for that matter.

Make no mistake though, there was a lot of nudity, and some sex too, but it was interesting that the next time the audience saw Kidman (just a minute later), she was decidedly up to something. no erotic (although some might argue that it is was intimate) – sitting on the toilet – as Cruise put the finishing touches on his appearance.

And they were conversing like married people do. She asked about her hair. It looked good? She said that she looked great. She said he hadn’t looked at it, so she did and repeated her compliment.

The night after the party, which was a nice mix of significant moments and red herrings, Cruise and Kidman smoked a joint and struck up a heart-to-heart, in which Kidman told Cruise that he had fantasized about having an affair with a naval officer. anonymous. she had seen during her vacation on Cape Cod a year earlier.

Kidman was drawn to him, like a moth to a flame. "If he loved me" she told cruise, "I would give up everything." She expressed relief that one day he disappeared and never came back. It meant that he would not have to make such a choice.

That mental image really lit a fire under Cruise, and he embarked on a two-night odyssey through New York’s sexual underworld.

The odyssey took him to many places, and he didn’t have to look far to find opportunities to cheat on Kidman. Such opportunities found him.

He got into them, he was tempted by them, he almost succumbed to them at times.

I guess this is what happened "Eyes wide Shut" I found especially fascinating: Cruise’s transformation from a stuffy but magnanimous sort of guy to an unrestrained sexual adventurer, all because his wife had told him he had fantasized about having an affair.

And yet…

He never gave in to temptation.

At one point, while making costume arrangements for an orgy (hosted by an unnamed secret society), Cruise met a young woman (Leelee Sobieski), the daughter of the costume shop owner. When Cruise returned the next day to return the costume, the store owner implied that his daughter was available for sexual favors.

(Some people think that Sobieski, who was 13 when filming began and 16 when it ended, resembles Helen Hunt, who was one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood at the time. I could see hints of a young Hunt in her face.) by Sobieski.in "Eyes wide Shut," but, in general, as he has aged, I see him less and less.

(I guess that was consistent for me. I once worked with a woman who told me she was the spitting image of Julia Roberts. I didn’t see that either.)

Other interesting angles of the story:

Sydney Pollack played the wealthy patient who threw the first party and was revealed to be one of the guests at the orgy. Harvey Keitel was originally cast in the role, but dropped out, as did Jennifer Jason Leigh, who was cast as Marion, the daughter of one of Cruise’s old friends, due to another commitment.

Marion’s father was dying and Cruise was summoned to his side. In the movie, Marion tells Cruise that she loves him and kisses him. Marie Richardson played the part in her place.

Some film critics rated "Eyes wide Shut" like an erotic thriller. It was even marketed that way. But that really was misleading.

The final product was really more of a psychological thriller, partly because of the things that were done in the editing process.

Apparently, the sexual content was even more graphic than what people saw on their movie screens, but, to avoid an NC-17 rating, certain techniques were used to silence it.

That was done after Kubrick’s death. Who knows if he would have agreed to what was done?

Of that attempt to silence the content, film critic roger ebert wrote, "[I]It’s well done, although it shouldn’t have been done at all… ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ should have been released as [Kubrick] did"

Sounds a lot like the argument I made against "Colorant" black and white movies. A film is a work of art, and the director is the artist. Since the appearance of color in movies, it has always been an artistic decision to use it, although the cost played a major role in that decision for many years.

The content of a film is even more of an artistic decision, so I agree with Ebert. The edits shouldn’t have been done at all, even if leaving the movie as it was meant an NC-17 rating.